December 15th, 2004, the WIPO Asian Regional Workshop on Intellectual Property (IP) for Managers and Staff of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and SME Support Institutions, organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in cooperation with the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of the People’s Republic of China, and with the assistance of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). Over 100 participants from the governments, research institutes and SMEs of China and the 22 countries of the Asian and the pacific region took part in the workshop. Mr. Li Yuguang, the Deputy Commissioner of SIPO, was present at the opening ceremony and gave a lecture.   On behalf of SIPO, Mr. Li extended warm welcome to the representatives and speakers from WIPO, JPO and KIPO, as well as all the participants from the Asian countries and SMEs in Shanghai. He said, IP has been the key basis of improving the SME competitiveness; whether an SME could obtain and use the IP assets effectively and transfer, reserve and further create IP assets, is now the key to the success of the SME. IP management in SMEs has been one of the stresses in the IP managements in the present China. He also expressed the expectation that the workshop could increase the IP awareness of SMEs and through which local SMEs could use IP assets more effectively, and learn the IP managing experience from overseas SMEs.      During the three-day workshop, relative officials, experts and scholars gave brilliant speeches and lectures on several topics such as how to establish IP marketing and branding strategies, how to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs by using IP, the use and development of IP assests of SMEs, conflicts settlement among SMEs, and the effective enforcement of IP; and also discussed these topics with the participants. After the discussional communicatiton, over 50 foreign participants from the Asian and pacific region paid a visit to the Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park, in Shanghai, and exchanged ideas with IP managing staff of the Park on IP assets managing and helping SMEs.

2005-01-06

2005-01-06